Hell of a Thief
by Jael K
Summary: Yet another fix-it fragment. The news out of Comic Con was tremendously disappointing, but now I can't stop thinking "What if?"


Note: I just keep thinking about the Legion of Doom news. Leonard Snart does not match the rest of the characters listed for that team. Not at all. So either the character has been retconned (boooo), changed for some reason (damn you, Barry), brainwashed or otherwise tinkered with (possible), or there's something else going on.

And in any case, he's going to be pretty darned annoyed.

With great thanks to LarielRomeniel for looking it over and for her "movie quotes" drabbles. There's a nod to those in here. :)

...

Leonard Snart takes two steps into the room and stops in his tracks, silently cursing Darhk yet again.

This woman, this…Sara Lance…is literally suspended by her wrists from the ceiling, putting a ridiculous amount of pressure on her arms in a way that looks horribly painful. She's hanging just low enough to be able to put a tiny bit of weight on her toes, but that's more of a tease than anything else.

At least Darhk hasn't done anything else. Yet.

She's working against the cuffs, though, despite what has to be a great deal of pain, a look of determination on her face. Damn, what a woman.

He takes another step, and she sees him. He feels himself actually wince at the look in her eyes. There's anger, but there's also something more, and he hesitates, thinking of her words and expression the first time he saw her.

 _"Leonard? My_ _God...how did you survive?"_ The shocked voice echoes in his memory.

But he just takes the lockpicks out of his pocket, holds them up as he approaches her.

"Hold still. If you kill me with your feet … or whatever … it might be fun, but it won't ultimately help you."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm letting you go." He has to go up on his toes himself to reach the cuffs, but it's doable.

She stills. "You're what?"

He hadn't intended to tell her, but something about this woman... "I didn't get into this for this crap. They're all psychopaths. And I'm no hero, but all I wanted was the score Thawne promised. I'm just not…invested." His mouth curls in a smile that is no smile.

"They're psychopaths...this is news?" Her blue eyes are narrowed. "You didn't know what you were getting into?"

"I was offered a big score and a challenge. No one said anything about committing mass murder or screwing up time itself or torturing gorgeous blondes." That last just sort of slipped out.

She's swiveled away; he can't see her eyes right now. "You should have left sooner, then," she tells him.

"Well." He shrugs. "And then Merlyn told me he had my sister."

He hears her quick intake of breath. "Lisa?"

It's his turn to still as he registers her knowledge of that name. "Yeah. How... Well, some vigilante group in Star City just took Merlyn's mansion, so one way or another, he doesn't have any power over her anymore. I'm out of here."

"But why not just go? Why free me?"

He doesn't really have an answer for her, so he just continues to work on the cuffs. She's swiveled enough that he's uneasily aware that she could headbutt him in the nose if she wanted; he can feel her breath on his throat.

She repeats the question.

"Maybe because it's the right thing to do?"

The noise she makes is amused and disbelieving at once. It turns into a sigh that's both relief and pain as he frees one hand, leaving her suspended by one wrist, and goes to work on the other.

He's seen her fight; he's heard Merlyn's description of her background. He has no doubt now that she could probably take him out at this close range and maybe even work her other wrist out.

But she doesn't.

He hesitates, then sort of angles his shoulder toward her, an invitation to put her free arm on it, take some of the weight off the other one. After a moment, she does.

"Answer me this," he says, eyes on the cuff. "How did...do...you know who I am? Mick might have told you, but you acted like you _know_ me."

Silence. Then, "I did."

"I think you have the wrong tense there." But they're currently in 2017; Thawne recruited him in 2013; he first saw this woman in 1947. He realizes, uneasily, that maybe she doesn't have it wrong. But how...

She's silent. He looks down to meet her eyes and sees pain there.

As far as he knows, the only pain he's ever caused this woman is when he knocked her out instead of freezing her, against Thawne's orders. And this is not that kind of pain.

"You were part of our team," she whispers.

He pauses, then gives her a look of such skepticism that she almost looks like she wants to laugh.

" _I_ was a hero." His tone is dry as dust.

"You were." Something in her eyes again.

"What'd I do, do something heroic and bite it?" He pauses as the lock clicks, then mutters to himself as the tumbler slips by, and glances at her.

Her eyes are closed. Tight. He reviews his last words. "Oh."

He doesn't want to know. He tells himself he doesn't want to know. In a moment, the lock clicks for good and he eases her down, fully cognizant of the fact that she can kick his ass at any time. She rubs her wrists and gives him an opaque look.

"You're serious about leaving."

"Yep." Eyeing her, he crosses to the door and picks up his cold gun again. "Follow if you want. Or not."

He's irrationally pleased when she does.

* * *

"So, was Merlyn serious? You've served in...and left...the League of Assassins? _Twice_?"

"Yes." Her voice is terse and she refuses to meet his eyes when he glances back at her as they move down the corridor.

He nods in respect, though. "Why? Seems you were...pretty damned good at it."

For some reason, it pushes a button, and she stops in her tracks. Against his better judgment, he stops too, and turns to face her. She's watching him with the oddest expression.

"That's not me anymore," she tells him, voice intense. "I'm trying to be better than that."

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Trying to be other than what he is is not something he's ever really bothered to do...not since he was younger and far more naïve, anyway.

Eventually, he nods again. She gives him another one of those painful looks, then starts walking.

He falls in beside her. They continue down the corridor in silence.

* * *

Thawne should have thought longer about giving Snart a gun meant to stop speedsters when he recruited him for this little boys club of his.

He nudges at the frozen body of the yellow-suited speedster with a toe, then sighs. "You do realize this means you have to give me a ride home, right?"

When he looks up, they're all staring at him. The blonde woman... Sara. The-Mick-who-is-and-isn't-really-Mick. The bearded man in the long brown coat. The kid, the professor, the man in the metal suit.

"Home. To 2013. Because Thawne can't take me back there now and I think you took out the other ship. Right?"

No one answers his question.

"Why did you do that, Mr. Snart?," the brown-coated man asks quietly.

Thawne had been about to kill this motley group of heroes. He'd been looking at Sara. He would have had her heart out of her chest in the tiniest fraction of a second. Bye, bye birdy.

"He pissed me off."

* * *

Mick has consented to fly the 2013 Snart home. She knows it's what has to happen, but she's having trouble with it anyway.

He's a jerk and an ass and he actually fought against them before thinking better of it, but he's still a, a remnant, and he's the only thing...

The rest of the team keeps its distance, partly on Rip's orders, partly because the whole thing is just...weird. She waits, though, as Mick, a stoic expression on his face, passes her, then meets Snart's eyes one last time.

He stops, but lets Mick gets farther down the corridor toward the jump ship before he speaks.

"Me and you...what were we?"

She looks at him a long moment, then gives him a sad smile. "We were friends."

"Friends."

"Yes," she whispers.

"Huh." He considers, then meets her eyes again. "I guess I'd better steal a kiss now, then."

And he does. For a brief moment, a heartbeat, a lifetime, his lips are on hers, tasting like mint and ice, and her lips open as she makes a noise of surprise and ...

And then he's pulled away, moving, looking over his shoulder at her with an unfathomable expression on his face as he follows Mick toward the jump ship … and his future.

"See you later … Sara," he whispers.

* * *

And so he's gone. Again.

This time back to life in 2013, where he'll go on to meet her on a rooftop and eventually chose to become a hero, after all.

(Rip gave Mick an amnesia pill for Snart. But Sara has a certain suspicion that Mick will "forget" to give it to him.)

It's not much of a consolation. Not for her, standing on the bridge and waiting for a team briefing with the feel of that kiss – second for her, first for him - still on her lips. Not for Mick, who's been utterly silent since dropping his friend off back in the time Thawne had plucked him from.

The others, for once, seem to have nothing to say. Rip is sneaking odd little looks at her; does he know she attempted to warn Snart? She finds she doesn't really care. It's not like it...

"Captain, Mr. Tyler requests permission to dock his jump ship. He says he has important news for us."

Rip frowns, leaning against his captain's chair and rubbing his temples. "Good news or bad news? Oh, permission granted. But we just managed to save the world again. I think we all could use a break."

"He did not say." Gideon pauses. "But, captain..."

"I really don't want to know, Gideon." Rip sounds exasperated and almost Snart-like. "I really don't."

"But I really think you will all want to know..."

But just then, Rex Tyler strides onto the bridge. And following him...

She knows instantly that it's the later Snart. The one she'd kissed at the Oculus, not the one who'd stolen a brief kiss only a few hours ago before going back to his own time.

He nearly runs into the room on Tyler's heels, stopping in his tracks to stare at her like he can't believe his eyes.

She knows the feeling.

"This guy started raising a ruckus in the time stream not long after you guys defeated the Legion," Tyler says, sounding like he's not sure whether to be annoyed or amused. "The equivalent of stomping his feet and waving his hands, really. I eventually managed to pull him out and he demanded to be brought to the Waverider. So here he is. I don't know how you managed to do it, but I'm washing my hands of this."

And he matches action to words, and turns and walks away. Leaving Leonard Snart on the bridge of the Waverider, staring at his former teammates, who are staring back at him.

Mick speaks first. "How...?"

Snart's eyes flick to him. "I had a warning this time," he says simply. "I knew to have a plan. Took some precautions before I left the Waverider to go to the wellspring."

Sara makes an involuntary noise. He looks back at her, his heart in his eyes in a way the 2013 Legion-member Snart would never, ever have allowed.

"I didn't think you believed me," she whispers, staring at him. "How did you..."

He stares back for a long moment, then the corner of his mouth lifts. He reaches into a pocket and pulls out a device she recognizes as the one the Pilgrim had used to freeze time when fighting them, or maybe it's the one Chronos had used to teleport himself at various times.

"Well, I figured, what the hell?" he tells her.

"Are you quoting 'Back to the Future?' " Ray, from the other side of the room, doesn't seem sure whether to be impressed or appalled.

Snart ignores him

"I don't think that last kiss really counted," he tells her, walking toward her. "Toward the 'hell of a thief' thing, I mean."

"Which one?"

"Either of them." And then he's kissing her again, and she's kissing him back, and Ray is making "aawwwww" noises in the background and Rip is asking what on Earth she's done (sounding more impressed than annoyed, for once) and Jax is pretending he's about to be sick and Amaya, entering the room, wants to know what the _hell_ is going on…

He's home.


End file.
